Karen O Fort

Karen O Fort

Karen Fort is a playwright, director and actor in Chicago, Illinois. She directed Slaughter City by Naomi Wallace, after playing the role of Mrs. Bernicke in Drumming In the Night at Prop Theater, directed by Stefan Brun. Karen played Chris in The Abdication for Wade-Kweskin Productions, and Nickitushka in Chekov’s Swansong. She played Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Theater NOW, and Brinna in The...

Karen Fort is a playwright, director and actor in Chicago, Illinois. She directed Slaughter City by Naomi Wallace, after playing the role of Mrs. Bernicke in Drumming In the Night at Prop Theater, directed by Stefan Brun. Karen played Chris in The Abdication for Wade-Kweskin Productions, and Nickitushka in Chekov’s Swansong. She played Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Theater NOW, and Brinna in The Medusa at the Nutshell. She played Nora in Better Living with Open Eye Theater. As an Equity actress, she worked for Victory Gardens (Close Ties), the Organic (Poe), Pheasant Run (Lunch Hour) and St. Nicholas (The Miracle Worker, Captain Marbles).She was seen on channel 11 in Protect Yourself, as a single mother who worries her daughter, and appeared in the film Four Friends, directed by Arthur Penn. Her directing credits include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet (twice each), To Kill A Mockingbird, Comedy of Errors, Measure For Measure, The Winter’s Tale, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, Macbeth, As You Like It, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Life Is A Dream, Summer Brave, The Tempest, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Much Ado About Nothing, Sally and Marsha, Pastoral, Castanets, and Motherlove. She taught professional adults Meisner technique at The Actor’s Center, and founded the Young Actors Program at the Organic Theater. She taught and directed at the Chicago Park District for twelve years. She wrote Groundswell, workshopped at RhinoFest, wrote Accidents, which received a staged reading at Victory Gardens and a workshop at the Rhino Fest, and The Arch for the Illustrated Theater. Her stories and articles have been published in The Reader, Sociology 101, and her poetry in a collection, Miracles.

Plays

AccidentsbyKaren O Fort

Cast:

5

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Genre: drama, melodrama + 1 more

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Keyword: chosen family, pro-choice + 3 more

Genre: drama, melodrama, political

Keyword: chosen family, pro-choice, women, gender roles, hippies

Vintage Cascadia, Oregon, 1973. The hippies and the loggers are trying to get along on the forest fire fighting crew. The Roe vs. Wade ruling happened. The teacher got fired for teaching evolution and Sex Ed. She wants a baby but her boyfriend Alan has eco grad school dreams, so isn’t ready for a kid. Tiger’s a local pal, hustling Jess like a wolf, but she’s been reading Ms. Magazine, so she’s wary of the old...

Vintage Cascadia, Oregon, 1973. The hippies and the loggers are trying to get along on the forest fire fighting crew. The Roe vs. Wade ruling happened. The teacher got fired for teaching evolution and Sex Ed. She wants a baby but her boyfriend Alan has eco grad school dreams, so isn’t ready for a kid. Tiger’s a local pal, hustling Jess like a wolf, but she’s been reading Ms. Magazine, so she’s wary of the old domination submission routine. Along comes teenage runaway Matti from urban Chicago, with her transistor radio and her secret troubles. The household takes her in, coaxing her to trust them by showing her their own secret: the forest marijuana plot. It hasn’t rained in weeks, so the hillsides are as dry as tinder. The phone rings. Fire-call!

Groundswell; a play about climate changebyKaren O Fort

Cast:

7

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Genre: drama

Genre: drama

Cast of 7, 4M, 3F. A heat wave strikes down a farmer and his son struggles. The family country place is torn between the daughter’s bridal shower, a proposal for mountaintop mining, and a storm with flooding. The family quarrels over how climate solutions pressure relationships and lifestyles. A nature girl’s overly bounteous offer is met with a young man’s sustainable restraint, and husbanding of her precious...

Cast of 7, 4M, 3F. A heat wave strikes down a farmer and his son struggles. The family country place is torn between the daughter’s bridal shower, a proposal for mountaintop mining, and a storm with flooding. The family quarrels over how climate solutions pressure relationships and lifestyles. A nature girl’s overly bounteous offer is met with a young man’s sustainable restraint, and husbanding of her precious resources. In contrast the top executive of Dominion Resources makes a lucrative offer to exploit the land by mountaintop removal. A flood washes away the girl’s mother, but she is rescued. A decision is made, and resilience offers hope.

Martin Pippin and The Apple OrchardbyKaren O Fort

Cast:

8–15

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Genre: adaptation, drama + 2 more

Genre: adaptation, drama, fable/folktale, romantic comedy

Adapted from the book by Eleanor Fargeon in 1921. The minstrel Martin Pippin visits the orchard where brokenhearted Gillian weeps. She has been locked in the mill-house to keep her from following her foolish heart, with six milkmaids, all sworn against men, to guard her. Martin Pippin summons his acting company the peddler woman and six young men who also work there win the confidence of the milkmaids by...

Adapted from the book by Eleanor Fargeon in 1921. The minstrel Martin Pippin visits the orchard where brokenhearted Gillian weeps. She has been locked in the mill-house to keep her from following her foolish heart, with six milkmaids, all sworn against men, to guard her. Martin Pippin summons his acting company the peddler woman and six young men who also work there win the confidence of the milkmaids by performing a a brand new love tale to cure Gillian of her heartsickness.

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